T-PRO Final Video/ Evaluation

Final outcome

Here is the final video piece that we as a group have produced. With our final product, we as a group feel like we have worked well as a team and that our communication skills worked great as this was key. Time management which was lead by Shannon worked perfectly as we all were available to fulfil this task.

Both Agne and Chris demonstrated excellent leadership, which was needed, so that we as a group stayed on track with the final task and produced exactly what we had planned.

We had some down falls, such as needing to reshoot some footage due to exposure and camera shake. This did not put us off and we were able to erect this situation by reshooting, keeping in mind the things that we needed to avoid to make the video crisp and clean.

My strengths as an indervidual was that i was able to contribute my skills within video editing towards the final project which everyone else enjoyed. I was able to teach the others within my group certain skills which were required to edit the final piece. Taking it in turns i also learn't new things from my team mates. This was ideal as we shared a lot of knowledge between each other.

My personal weaknesses within this project was that i sometimes rushed certain areas within the video piece. Examples such as the exposure of going indoors and out doors and trying to match the lighting up. As i don't have enough experience with that side i will able able to correct this by learning from this project and making every flaw perfect.

Overall we are all happy with the final out come and would love to do the project all over again. Our team was amazing which made it that even more better as we were all friends. Generally being friends and working together would sometimes lead to disagreement's. However our group think along the same lines so this was not an issue we had to look out for.

Recording the Audio for Tony

As a documentary piece, we wanted Tony to answer a few questions that were about him and his journey. The first day of the shoot we had a slight issue with the Zoom recored. Due to this we were unable to recored the audio for that piece. However we did recored it via camera, so we used this footage as test footage so that we could present it towards our video tutor so that she could get an idea of how we were going to display this documentary styled piece. 

The questions that we asked Tony were perfect for our video piece, however he did ramble on a little bit which lead the the recording to go over 18 minutes, which was a lot of audio as our video piece was around 3 minutes long.

As a team we were able to cut down the audio to around 2 minutes long. Cutting out pauses and unnecessary answers that we not relevant towards the project. 

Questions asked:

Who are you and what do you do?

What is your favourite breakdance move?

Why he breakdances and if he enjoys it?

Will he attend any breakdancing competitions?

Release Form

This is a sheet that was constructed by our group so that we had permission in black and white to shoot our video piece inside and outside the premisses of The Boardroom.

Post production

Post Production

Once the video was captured, the next stage was to edit and merge all the clips together into a narrative. This was an easy task for us as a group as we all worked well together as a group. Sharing ideas and communicating continuously throughout the task, this enabled us to keep on top of the video task to achieve our final result.

 When the video was being made i started making the music for the video. By using Logic pro X i was able to create a breakbeat using loops and sound effects provided by Logic pro X. Once the track was made i had to make sure that the levels for each loop was all matched up. The reason for the matching up was due to some of the loops being a higher tempo in comparison to the others. It did not sound right. I erected the situation by changing the tempo to around 70BPM. This synced up all the samples to flow as one.

The next step was to create the effects and the visualisation within the video. To do such a task i used Adobe After Effects and Final Cut Pro. This was an easy task for me as i specialise and have a keen interest for visual effects. I had to make sure that each key frame was positioned correctly and timed well for it to be synchronised with the footage. With Final Cut i was able to grab some green screen footage and key out the green to give the smoke effects and so on.

Once all the clips were merged along side the effects and music, the final step was to export the file as a MOV file and to burn it onto a DVD for me and my group to present in front of the class.

Equipment used

The equipment used to capture our video piece:

• 3 DSLR Camera's
• 1 Boom mic
• 1 Zoom recorder
• 2 Tripods
• Headphones
• Speakers
• 50-300mm Lens
• Fish eye Lens

Most of the equipment used was from home except the Zoom recorder and the Boom Mic which we hired out from the University loans department. 

Shooting on the day

Shooting on the day

Before the shooting took place we went to the location site first to check out if it was a suitable place for our video project to take place. There grit on the floor but other than that, the lighting was perfect and the surroundings gave an urban feel. This is what we wanted and felt like we had achieved our goal of finding the right location to shoot in.

The usage of graffiti on all the walls made it that extra better for us as this fitted into our idea of the whole urban style. For health and safety we had to wait for Tony as he needed to judge whether if it was suitable for him to breakdance on, avoiding any injuries.

The location was called The Boardroom which was near my old college, we had to make sure that the location was suitable as it was also used for parking cars. However on the day of the shoot we had no obstruction or any cars in our way, is some sense the cars and surroundings added that urban effect, so it wasn't a huge issue.

An example of the surface in which Tony needed to breakdance on, showing that it was a cemented surface that had cracks and grit.

 An image of the crew along side Tony.

 A shot of the surroundings to illustrate the usage of graffiti and the urban feel that it gave off.

Final image of Tony breakdancing. 

Shot list

 Here is a list of all the shots used or were meant to be used within the video piece. 

Shot Number	Shot type	Shot description	Location	Actors
1	Wide shot	Wide shot, establishing the location.	The Boardroom wall	None
2	Wide shot	Wide shot, establishing camera pans entire 360 of location.	The Boardroom wall	None
3	Mid shot	Mid, panning right of location. Eye level shot.	The Boardroom wall	None
4	Mid shot	Mid shot, panning left of location. Eye level shot.	The Boardroom wall	Tony
5	Close up	Close up shot of dancers feet. Camera looking straight on to the action, held close to the ground.	The Boardroom wall	Tony
6	Mid shot	Mid shot of dancers, focusing on their feet. Camera positioned close to the ground looking straight onto the action.	The Boardroom wall	Tony
7	Close up	Close up shot of dancers feet. High angle, looking down onto the action.	The Boardroom wall	Tony
8	Close up	Close up of dancer performing flare, slight pan right around the dancer.	The Boardroom wall	Tony
9	Mid shot	Mid shot of dancer performing flare, slight pan right around the dancer.	The Boardroom wall	Tony
10	Close up	Close up of dancer performing flare,extreme high angle.	The Boardroom wall	Tony
11	Close up	Close up of dancer performing flare, low angle.	The Boardroom wall	Tony
12	Mid shot	Mid shot of dancer, camera zooms into focus on feature, e.g.feet moving.	The Boardroom wall	Tony
13	Mid shot	Camera looking onto bins out of focus, pans out form behind bins to see the location in focus, with dancer in position.	The Boardroom wall	Tony

Treatment

Unfortunately Chi who was the house dancer, he had other plans which had affected our video schedule. We had no other choice but to fall back to plan B. Plan B was to shoot Tony and Tony alone. Documenting him as a breakdancer and the journey in which he went on to become who he is today.


Wa-Chi VS Tony

The video will be based around a break-dancer and a house dancer and will revolve around their involvement in dance and what dance means to them.  The video will showcase their dance abilities, with the two interviewees (dancers) layered over the top talking about the dance experiences.

LENGTH

The video will be five minutes long.

STRUCTURE

The five minute documentary video will be filmed in two locations, an outside location called the Boardroom, which is similar to a skate park with graffiti walls. The second location will be inside, and will be a dance studio in either CODE or DMU.

           

Our interviewees are;

            Chi – house dancer

            Tony – a break-dancer

Access

One of our dancers works in the week therefore we would have to take this in consideration when planning filming schedules. Both dancers have confirmed that they are happy to take part in the documentary.

We feel this idea will make a good documentary because it will be visually interesting our group is particularly interested in making a dance documentary as two of our members are part of dance groups but we all have an interest in dance.

Direction/ Film techniques

Split screen

Camera pan / usage of different camera angles

Video filters

We want to show new forms or dance that people don’t know much about and might not normally watch. We will explore how dance influences style.

Music: We will be using house music, and other urban music (break-beat). We will either create this ourselves using music editing software, or it will be sourced via Soundcloud with the artists permission. 

Story Board

Assignment two

In this assignment we have been asked to create a documentary piece of any chosen topic. Working in groups of 4; (Me, Christopher Panayi, Shannon Jinks and Agnė Balnionytė. We were able to present a range of ideas in which we wanted to illustrate our ideas in. We all agreed on creating a breakdance video which had a structure in which we could embed a documentary theme towards our video piece.

The original idea was to create a concept of different dance styles which were house and breakdance. Due to circumstances, we had to fall back to our plan B. Plan B was to create just a video about breakdancing rather than two different styles of dance. Within this blog i will demonstrate our journey in which we all took as a team to achieve our final video project.